Montana’s Culture of Leniency Toward Poaching

How easily poachers often get off on their wildlife crimes in Montana has always bothered me.
In case the offender is the type to seek retaliation, I will leave out a few details that would identify those whom made FWP aware of his deeds, although ultimately he got himself caught by sending pictures to a lot of people and being loose lipped.
A friend of mine drew a bull tag in a difficult to draw district known for producing trophy bulls. This is a the type of guy that hunts his ass off, is honest, does things right and applied for a lot of years to get this special tag. He became aware of a very large bull and started hunting him in archery and then into rifle season. The later in the year it got, the more the bull transitioned to mainly living on private but would come into public occasionally.
One day or night Matthew Cool decided to poach this bull on private land, drive his pickup illegally onto federal public lands, unloaded an ATV, tore up a creek bottom with it, cut the fence into private property, entered the private property, cut two more fences and recovered the bull. This wasn’t a mistake or a judgement lapse. This was planned out, premeditated, blatant poaching.
This bull was rough scored at 391” far exceeding the ‘trophy’ minimum of 360” which can
lead to a restitution of $8,000. On top of that a person could face confiscation of their ATV, Fines, lengthy license suspension, and jail time, not to mention non wildlife charges such as destruction of property etc.

In all, he received approximately $2500 in fines and a 24 month suspension of his licenses and all jail time suspended from charges of criminal mischief and unlawful possession. A slap on the wrist in my opinion. Is that really all a bull like this is worth?

Below are the sentencing documents and the poacher Matt Cool with the bull.

I think we need to demand more of our county attorneys, prosecutors and judges. IN this case, FWP did their job. They followed up on reports, collected evidence and issued citations. What a slap in the face to the warden such a limp wristed sentence is.

Does anybody have any thoughts on how citizens might demand better? Are mandatory minimums the answer?

That’s infuriating. Maybe we need to make it known that these types of sentences for such blatant poachers are not acceptable come election time.

It is infuriating. $2500 seems light if you take the poaching out of the equation and just look at the ATV/trespassing issues.

2500 and two years lost privellages seems like what I would expect for someone who accidentally shot a critter they didn’t have a tag for.

I think the fines should start at 10k for poaching and 10k for ATV trespassing. If its as blatant as you laid out. It pisses me off when I hike a few miles into the wilderness areas just to here an ATV come buzzing up the creek bed below me. Poachers wont get the message unless they really get smacked down with penalties that hurt. One thing I don't agree with is a lifetime ban on hunting privileges. Then you have for sure created a lifetime poacher. While most probably wont realize they should do things the legal way some will realize they want to become a productive part of sociality again and attempt to be law abiding to earn that privilege back.

Poachers should be made to work at check stations in the fall while wearing a shirt that explains what animals they poached. Having hundreds of hunters standing there telling their kids what a POS poacher that guy is would do more than these slap on the wrist punishments like this or the one where the guy had to watch bambi once a month.

WOW. What a joke. I'm so sick of these losers getting a slap on the wrist. It's ironic to me that they think taking hunting and fishing privileges away for two years matters to people who don't even buy licenses to begin with? He should have gotten 10k minimum and lost his weapon, Binos, ATV, and have to repair all the fences and property he damaged. There is zero fear factor for these losers. None.

Heck, he even got a no interest payment plan. That Judge needs to toughen up his sentences on poachers. Were the antlers confiscated?

I want to start by saying I'm in no way defending this man. I totally agree he's the type of person that gives us all a bad name. I'm just going to repeat what I was told by a warden. This was not considered a poaching case as he held a valid tag. If he wouldn't have held a permit, the outcome would have been way different. Trespasser, not a poacher...

"I want to start by saying I'm in no way defending this man. I totally agree he's the type of person that gives us all a bad name".

I'll start mine the same way, but take a different direction.

It amazes me the attention paid to the taking of one trophy animal illegally, as compared to the relative lack of attention paid to threats to our resources on a habitat, population and landscape scale. When a wealthy landowner can illegally riprap a mile of river or (a different scenario - access) illegaly barricade a public access - and is charged - if at all a minimal fine, how does anyone expect the "poaching" of one animal to be a big deal.
And Gomer, if this didn't involve a friend, would you have been incensed enough to go put up such a lengthy and detailed post??
Agreed things should change but how willing and participating in that change are people willing to be???......

Just food for thought.

Fire_9 said:

Trespasser, not a poacher...

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You could be a judge!

I didn’t time it, but if I had to guess I would say it took me between two and four minutes to type that. Not exactly an amazing amount of attention.
If not for my friends involvement, I would not know about it, so you’re right about that. The poaching of one of the largest typical elk in the country this year isn’t news worthy so I only learned of it through him.
Speaking of those topics, I found it interesting that the BLM refers to FWP to enforce the illegal ATV use across closed public land, and when that charge isn’t prosecuted they do nothing. I bet you could get in hot water with BLM just by doing what he did on the ATV, if hunting infractions weren’t involved and you dealt with BLM LEO instead. If not, it’s no wonder why we hear of so much illegal ATV use.

I get what Onpoint is saying but others would look at the issues he mentioned and sat it amazes them that people have the time to worry about habitat for animals, or access for priveledged people to enjoy hobbies like hunting and fishing when there are rapes, child abuse, human smuggling, wars, several billion people living in poverty without electricityor access to nutritious food, or clean water.

I say it is possible for people to think about and care about more than one thing at a time.

If this post isn’t for you, there are literally hundreds of posts on the topics you mentioned you can go back to and partake in the circular conversations of liberal versus conservative snivelfest that we all love.

To Fire9: if this isn’t considered poaching in the eyes of the law, I think that speaks loudly about the culture I’m talking about. It is more than trespassing.

Required tag and permit or not, he broke laws in the taking of that bull. That, to me at least is poaching. mtmuley

PrairieHunter said:

Poachers should be made to work at check stations in the fall while wearing a shirt that explains what animals they poached. Having hundreds of hunters standing there telling their kids what a POS poacher that guy is would do more than these slap on the wrist punishments like this or the one where the guy had to watch bambi once a month.

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I like this idea.

Go try and get a meeting with the judge and prosecutor, even better get a group of people to go with you, and politely let them know that wildlife crime is important and needs to be treated as such.. You are very correct in ultimately that is where the punishment comes from.

Poaching is theft.Theft is Felony .Felony is Prison.Confiscation of Vehicles and Weapons.

i don't see that he lost the bull,

if he retained possession a 390 bull in todays market, he got it really cheap, hell a guy could do that every year and be cheaper than paying for a guided hunt for the chance at that caliber of bull,,,,

why wouldn't the landowner file charges, of trespass, destruction private property ect,,,,

also, had this been a forked horn mulie, would the reactions be the same,,,,,

300stw said:

also, had this been a forked horn mulie, would the reactions be the same,,,,,

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If it was a mule deer fawn I still think it should be 10k fine along with the loss of weapon and any vehicle used in the act. So yeah, my reaction would be the same although most would probably say that I'm "over the top".

I think the lack of seriousness for wildlife crimes is typical in general everywhere. There are a few cases were it seems criminals received adequate systems but in general I've seen mostly reduced fines and suspended sentences.

Here is WA we have a group of poachers that are 2nd time offenders, that are currently thought to have illegally killed >50 animals. The leader's son was convicted of 4 of the 56 charge filed the other 52 were dropped. Several of the lower tier members have gotten off with very minor sentencing (i.e. small fines, completely reduced jail time). http://www.chronline.com/crime/poac...cle_355356e0-e83b-11e8-a3f9-e7537500a9a5.html

Sorry to hijack. But I don't think it's just a MT problem. Part of me wants to make these cases more mainstream so people realize the kinds of wildlife thefts that are occurring, but I recognize not everyone will understand the difference between a hunter and a poacher.